1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a bracket assembly used to guide and support a plug-in card while it is being connected to a backplane or disconnected from the backplane that is located in an enclosure.
2. Description of Related Art
In the telecommunications field, many enclosures like a Signaling Transfer Point (STP) enclosure contain a lot of plug-in cards, backplanes, cables etc . . . in a relatively small area which makes it very difficult for service personnel to work within the enclosure. For instance, service personnel often have difficulty seeing through all the cables in a crowded enclosure and as a result have a hard time properly connecting a plug-in card (e.g., personality module) to one of the backplanes. In particular, the service personnel may not be able to see through the cables routed in front of the backplane which makes it hard for them to properly align and connect a plug-in card to a set of pins extending from the backplane. Referring to FIG. 1, there is a perspective view of a plug-in card 100 that is not properly connected to a backplane 102. As shown, the plug-in card 100 has a connector 104 which was misaligned when it was connected to pins 106 extending from the backplane 102. The plug-in card 100 is misaligned because there is a row of pins 106a extending from the backplane 102 which should have interfaced with the connector 104. It is easy to understand how service personnel working in a crowded enclosure (not shown) could easily misalign and fail to properly connect the plug-in card 100 to the backplane 102. Of course, when the plug-in card 100 does not properly connect to the backplane 102 then that plug-in card 100 and possibly the other plug-in cards (not shown) in the enclosure would not work properly. In fact, the service personnel could misalign the plug-in card 100 and bend the pins 106a in the backplane 102 which would also be very problematical. Accordingly, there is a need for a bracket assembly that can be used to guide and support a plug-in card in a manner such that the plug-in card can be easily and properly connected to a backplane. This need and other needs are addressed by the bracket assembly and method of the present invention.